ALR

Thanks for all the responses guys. We found that the exe was a repackaged exe with a different hash so our GPO blocking the file didn't pick it up. We have added the new exe hash now. Yes you have to give them credit. Some of them are very enterprising little gifts from God! We'll just have to keep our eyes on what they are bringing in.... Cheers chaps! Al

When we look into the Powerpoint file, the exe file location point to the temporary AppData on the local profile of one of our student users. The location just says C:\Users\09Username\AppData\Local\Temp\Filename.exe but the file does not exist on the PC I am testing on so it must be getting the source from the local profile of another PC somewhere on the network. The thing I do not understand is all our Student accounts have mandatory profiles.

Hi All, We are being plagued at the moment with students playing Minecraft in lessons. We have blocked the .exe from running and have denied any student saving a .exe on their home folders. The little darlings are now embedding the .exe into a Powerpoint presentation then running it from there and it is working. Does anyone know how to block .exes running from within Powerpoint? I've done a Google around and have searched forums but have found nothing that would suit. We are running Windows 7 32-bit on clients, Office 2010 and our domain is Server 2008 R2. Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. Al

Before WHD was sold to SolarWinds, you could use the "lite" version (for one techie) for free. If you had more than one member of IT Support staff then you had to purchase additional licences. SolarWinds bought it really recently and changed the format of the licences, so no more freebies...

Do you have another PC with only the standard XP fonts installed? Just copy them from there. Failing that the list of XP fonts is here: Standard installed windows XP fonts Cheers, Al

We use WebHelpDesk, the most important feature for us was end user ease of use, and this helpdesk is VERY easy to use but powerful at the same time. Help Desk Software by Web Help Desk Cheers, Al

I would strongly recommend that you DON'T install Exchange on a DC as you could have limitless complications. I once looked after a school with this set up (Exchange 2003 running on a Server 2003 DC) and the issues we faced included 20+ minute log on times at random moments through the day. This was due to the Exchange Mailbox Store service taking over 80% of system resources and dragging everything else on the server down to a crawl. If you can, keep your Primary DC being just a primary DC and your Exchange box being nothing but an Exchange box. You'll definitely have less headaches Cheers, Al

On your DC, open MMC and add ADSI Edit into the console. ADSI Edit is just another way of looking at active directory. Once ADSI edit is open, you should see the top of the AD tree (something like "Domain [servername.domain.ext.ext]) if you expand the level you'll see a folder icon with your domain name looking like [DC=domainname, DC=forestname,DC=uk]. When you expand again you should see a directory similar to AD but with "OU=" in front of each OU name. Find the OU where your user is, then right click the user (something like "CN=testaccount") and go to properties. In the window will be all the attributes that your user object has (basically all the info displayed in the tabs in ADUC). I cannot remember what the groups attributes are called, but look down the list looking for your security group names. Hopefully one of them in there will be the group that your test account was taken out of. Remove it from in there then delete the local profile on the PC, reboot PC and try the mappings again. I can have a poke a writing a "How To" with screenshots if needed but that will take a bit longer. Don't want to teach you how to suck eggs though! :0) Cheers, Al

What type of script maps the drives? Batch file? KIX script? I had something similar on Server 2003 awhile back. I went into ADSI edit on the server and checked the groups the affected account was in and it WAS a member of one of the groups which ADUC was not showing! Cheers, Al

Yes you have to delete the Desktop.ini to return the home folder name to the username, but using the File Screen prevents the user from saving another desktop.ini the next time they log off. The solution to get rid of the "MY Documents" folder name is delete the desktop.ini then apply the file screen to stop it coming back... The physical folder name in the NTFS file structure will stay the same (if you navigate to the folder in Command prompt the name will still be the username), the dekstop.ini masks it to call it "My Documents", but your home folder shares should still work if set up properly. If the share stops working it is more likely something in the GPO, the share or permissions than the desktop.ini oddity. Cheers, Al

Only thing to note about with having one server as a VM host is that if that server fails, you lose all the VMs on it. Everything is moving Virtual nowadays (my domain is now fully VMWare) so it is a sound way of moving forward... Cheers, Al

Alright, firstly it is always best to have your Primary DC doing nothing but being a Domain Controller. That way if you have any Domain issues, you know there is going to be no other application/service interfering with your DC. Also, us IT guys in Schools have to support hundreds of log-ons everyday as students change lessons etc, so our DCs always have a lot of work to do! Second, you cannot raise the functional level of the domain whilst you have Server 2000 DCs still running. Demoting Server 2000 DCs can be a right pain the ass too! You really are going to have to purchase a new server to be your Primary DC. With regards to Exchange, I'll need to do some further digging, but Exchange is heavily integrated into AD. If you raise your domain level with Server 2000 DCs still online, then I would expect Exchange to throw a fit. I also recommend you do not run Sharepoint and SQL Services on the same server unless it has a lot of RAM/Processor power. One way of getting your level raised: Buy a new server, install with Server 2003 and DC Promo it. Transfer all FSMOs to it. Move File/Printer services from back-up DC to Sharepoint server, re-install old backup-DC with server 2003, DCPromo it. Make sure all FSMOs/DNS/DHCP etc is off old Primary DC. Turn off old Primary DC and check all runs. Re-install old Primary DC with Server 2003 and transfer Exchange 2003 to it. (to eradicate Server 2000) Raise domain level to server 2003. Re-install old Server 2000 box which ran Exchange with Server 2003, then transfer Sharepoint or File/Print services to it. That is one hell of a lot of messing around (and assuming you have the licenses), and I would rather do it with smaller steps than that, but that is one way of raising your Domain level... Cheers, Al

Is there any further information in Event Viewer with regards to IIS? It may give further information about what is crashing/causing the crash... Cheers, Al

Hi jfrey, Quite a complex question you have there. Can I ask a few questions first so I can best understand your set up and requirements? 1. Are your current DCs Windows Server 2000? 2. When you say can the existing 2003 servers be used as a DC do you mean leaving them installed as is and doing a DCPromo on it? 3. What age are your physical servers? 4. When you say to keep the demoted Server 2000 servers, do you mean not re-installing them? 5. Do you have licencing restrictions, or is there money in the pot? I'm happy to give you my advice with regards to your questions, but it is only advice based on my past experiences and knowledge and not an experts advice! Cheers, Al

There is a fix for the home folders being renamed to "My Documents". We had this problem and fixed it by stopping users from saving the desktop.ini files in their home area. This might be totally unrelated but I saw the image attached to your post and thought it may help. If you want directions on applying the file screen, let me know and I'll post it... Cheers, Al